International

Journal of the
International Journal of the Sociology of Law Sociology of Law
30 (2002) 235–257
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijsl

Fade to grey: portraying the ethnic minority

experience in British film
P. Robson*
University of Strathclyde, The Law School, Stenhouse Building 173 Cathedral Street, Glasgow G4 0RQ, UK

Abstract

This paper is principally concerned with a matter which does not appear to have received
much attention in the literature, namely the representation and adaptation of the ethnic
minority1 experience in film. These issues have, for the reasons explained below, only appeared
in a limited way in British popular culture. The imperial and inter-cultural experience of race
has appeared in a variety of forms over the years. This paper seeks to place this film coverage
in its historical and political context. It does this by looking in some detail at how one
particular representation of ethnicity in Errol Braithwaite’s autobiographical To Sir with Love,
fared in its adaptation for the screen. A much blander portrayal of race and racism in post-
War Britain emerges from the film of To Sir With Love than that of the original literary source
with the background of racism largely removed from the film. The paper suggests that to
obtain a better purchase on the process of adaptation it is crucial to examine the social and
political context within which the films in question are made rather than simply concentrate on
the aesthetic and stylistic distinctions between the written source and film2 as though these are
pure processes to be assessed in some kind of artistic vacuum. This examination is premised on
the basis that there is significance in examining the cinematic portrayal of such developments.3
r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-141-548-3738; fax: +44-141-553-1546.

E-mail address: peter.robson@strath.ac.uk (P. Robson).
1
For a discussion of the problems of terminology for black and British Asian cinema and her reasons
for adopting ‘‘black’’ as the appropriate description see Lola Young in Questions of Colour (Givanni, 1995,
p. 40). This essay looks beyond this experience and adopts the term ‘‘ethnic minorities’’ to reflect this,
conscious of the problem of the mode of perception that this might be seen to imply.
2
Richardson (1969).
3
Gabriel (1998).

0194-6595/02/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 9 4 - 6 5 9 5 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 3 6 - 9
236 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257

1. The political and social context of race and ethnicity in Britain

Even in the United States, the world’s principal film producing country there have
been only a limited number of films on racial and ethnic issues with less produced
and directed by ethnic minority writers and actors4. In Britain the number has been
extremely restricted. Britain’s racial and ethnic mix, however, is quite distinct from
that of other English language film producing countries like the United States,
Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The history and nature of this mix appears to
have had an impact on the issues which filmmakers in Britain have sought to bring to
the screen. Britain’s ethnic minority population has a number of distinctive
characteristics. They are principally from the former British Empire and they are
classified in census terms as not white.5 Their presence in Britain is almost wholly
voluntary.6 They reflect the racial and ethnic make-up of the former colonies. Their
numbers are relatively smaller than the public imagine at some 7.1% of the overall
population.7 The white population amounts 54,670,000 and the total ethnic minority
population is 4,045,000.8
It is a population increasingly born in Britain. Some 50% of the ethnic minority
population were born in the United Kingdom and in the age group up to 14 the
figure is 90%.9 Calls for repatriation become more problematic for racist politicians.
Racist politics declined as a force in Britain during the 1990s from a high point in the
late 1970s when the popular vote was 3% and the ‘‘rights for whites’’ National Front
put up candidates in 300 out of 650 Parlimentary seats. In the 1997 General election,
the vote for the 30 candidates of the successor racist British National Party was a
little over 35,000. Even with Proportional representation in the June 1999 elections
the far right with its obsession about a ‘‘non-white’’ takeover of Britain made no
breakthrough like the Front National in France or the resurgent fascist right in
Germany10 and no wide national support has since occurred.11

4
Cripps (1978).
5
Annual Abstract of Statistics (HMSO), 2002, Table 5.6.
6
There is of course the slavery link with enforced removal from Africa to the West Indies. Slavery as a
social institution within Britain as opposed to the colonies was a feature of British life between the 17th
and 18th centuries. Estimates are not essayed in the standard work on slavery of the number of slaves in
Britain—Thomas (1998), The Slave Trade.
7
Race in Britain 2001, Observer, November 25, 2001 Special Report—the median answer of the 1000
adults in the ICM telephone research conducted in September and November 2001 suggested an ethnic
minority population of 24% or 14.3 million—p. 12.
8
Table 5.6; Population by age and ethnic group: Great Britain—Annual Abstract of Statistics, 2002.
HMSO, London, 2002. The major groupings of ethnic minority citizens are as follows: Black Caribbean
529,000; Black African 440,000; Black Other 129,000; Black mixed 178,000; Indian 985,000; Pakistani
675,000; Bangladeshi 257,000; Chinese 151,000; Other Asian non-mixed 242,000; Other non-mixed
219,000; other mixed 240,000.
9
Population Trends. HMSO, London, Autumn 2001, p. 15.
10
Target: England The Guardian, April 27, 1999, p. 15.
11
The more notable BNP performances in the Oldham East bye-election and subsequent local elections
of 2002 seem more attributable to specific local factors than a widespread upsurge in support for the far
right agenda—The Guardian, May 15, 2002.
 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257 237

On the face of things there is no necessary link between immigration and colour.
There was no suggestion that the inter-War Italian or post-War Polish and
Lithuanian communities threatened to ‘‘dilute the national stock’’ or that they
‘‘posed a threat to British culture’’. Anti-Semitism produced a slightly different
reaction.12 Concerns about the ‘‘national stock’’ were expressed as fears about the
politics of European immigrants before the Great War. The threat to jobs of these
individuals fleeing pogroms was the moral panic, which led to the control of entry
into Britain in the first place.13
Until the outbreak of the First World War there precious few limitations on who
could enter and leave Britain. Control over entry into Britain from 1913 was initially
exercised under the legislation dealing with aliens. The entry into Britain depended
on whether a person was a British subject. In the immediate post-Great War era,
however, there were race riots in a number of British seaports resulting in a handful
of deaths. The Government paid a sum of d5 per head for some 1500 seamen to be
repatriated to the Caribbean and West Africa.14
In the inter-war period the number of non-white faces in Britain remained small. It
has been estimated that there were some 10,000 black inhabitants in Britain in 1948
when some of the earliest attempts to restrict black workers rights were attempted
through the National Union of Seamen.15
As the 1942 Beveridge Report on welfare reform made clear one of the concerns of
the Government in the years of war and reconstruction was the lack of numbers of
the workforce.16 This problem was met by immigration from the colonies,
particularly from the West Indies. They were actively recruited by those with
worker shortages like London Transport. Numbers of immigrants in response to the
demand for workers rose from the late 1940s over the next 30 years from the low
base indicated to 836,00017 in 1966 and 1.1 million by 1971.18 The response of the
host population was negative, as it had been during immigration from Ireland during
the 19th century. The common colour and tongue of such immigrants, however, led
to assimilation in Britain with extensive intermarriage.19
Immigrants from the new Caribbean and Indian sub-continent were, however,
more easily identified. Serious race riots took place in 1958 in Notting Hill in
London and Nottingham as far right groups sought to use the issue of race to
supplement their traditional concern with the alleged International Jewish
Conspiracy.20 There were calls for repatriation from both politicians in mainstream

12
Holmes (1979).
13
Lloyd (1970, p. 8).
14
Humphries and Gordon (1990).
15
The Solution that started a problem Cashmore (1989).
16
Report on National Insurance and Allied services (Chairman Sir William Beveridge) Cmd 6404
(HMSO), para 15, p. 8.
17
Social Trends (1970, Table 17).
18
Social Trends, (1974, Table 13).
19
Swift (1990), Davis (1991), and Handley (1964).
20
For an account of the shift of the far right’s concerns from a concentration on anti-semitism to black
citizens in the post-War era, see, Martin Walker (1980).
238 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257

parties as well as traditional racists on the right.21 This bore fruit in the
Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 whose real objectives were admitted by one
of those in the Government of the day
The Bill’s real purpose was to restrict the influx of coloured immigrants. We were
reluctant to say as much openly. So the restrictions were applied to coloured and
white citizens in all Commonwealth countries—though everybody recognised that
immigration from Canada, Australia and New Zealand formed no part of the
problem. 22
It was in this context that Braithwaite’s book, To Sir With Love, documented his
experiences as one of the earlier post-War Service immigrants. Apart from UK
passport holders, other Commonwealth citizens were required to obtain a Ministry
of Labour voucher to enter the UK. Irish citizens were exempted. Vouchers were
limited and the number issued fell from over 30,000 in 1963 to fewer than 2500 in
1972. The 1962 Act was denounced by the Labour Party when introduced but not
altered when they achieved office in 1964. They had accepted the notion that good
race relations was best served by limiting immigration. As the Labour MP for
Birmingham Sparkbrook, Roy Hattersley, put it in 1965
Without integration, limitation is inexcusable; without limitation, integration is
impossible.

Given the small indigenous non-white British population, the subsequent

Immigration Act 1971 with its notion of patriality23 effectively allowed in white
Commonwealth citizens while excluding non-white ones.24 The numbers of
immigrants was reduced.25 This is the context in which one needs to situate the
legislation protecting those already in Britain from racial discrimination.

1.1. Eliminating discrimination

National legislation was introduced in 1965 by the Race Relations Act, which
sought to outlaw discrimination in public places like cinemas and dance halls. An
overt colour bar had not been a frequent feature of British life. Discrimination had
tended to be private and not publicly advertised as Braithwaite found when trying to
obtain a job and accommodation. In place of signs saying No Coloureds, rooms
21
For a brief overview see Hill (1986, pp. 27–31).
22
Deedes (1968, p. 10).
23
Entry, if one grandparent had been born in Britain which covered many whose forebears had
emigrated to Canada, Australia New Zealand, etc.
24
Annual Abstract of Statistics, 2002 (HMSO), Table 5.8. Matters were made even more restrictive with
the British Nationality Act 1981 and the Immigration Rules of 1973 and their updating in the 1990s.
25
By 1997, some 59,000 were accepted for settlement and in the next 2 years there was rise to 68,790 in
1998 and 97,120 in 1999. In addition, between 20,000 and 40,000 asylum seekers applied to Britain during
the early 1990s from a range of countries. Towards the end of the decade, the figures rose sharply to 71,000
in 1999 and 80,000 in 2000 mainly as a result of internal wars and inter-ethnic conflicts in various parts of
the world.
 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257 239

tended to have ‘‘been already let’’. The scope of the protection offered through a
discrimination approach was extended to housing and jobs with the introduction of
the Race Relations Act 1968. The principle was retained in the updating of this
protective legislation in 1976. The Race Relations Act 1976 operates principally
through an individual complaints framework. There is the option for individuals to
take action through tribunals where they have been discriminated against on the
grounds of race, colour, ethnic or national origin. These actions may be supported
by the official body set up to promote good race relations, the Commission for
Racial Equality. This body is also charged with working at the structural level to
address systemic discrimination by investigations and more recently with other
public bodies requiring to promote equality of opportunity and good relations
between people of different racial groups.26
The legislation has not been an unqualified success in the workplace.27 In addition,
ethnic minorities form a disproportionate proportion of the prison population. They
are more heavily and crudely policed than the white population. They are
underrepresented in the machinery of law and order. They form only 1.8% of the
police force and none of the senior judiciary. Concern is widespread that systemic
racism operates in the operation of the law against ethnic minorities.28

2. Nature of coverage of race and ethnicity in British film

As has been noted, in Britain the non-white population grew from 10,000 to a little
over 4 million in 50 years. An imperial power relinquished a major empire during
this time. There is a wealth of material here for cinematic treatment. British cinema
has looked at racial and ethnic issues in three quite specific and distinct ways during
different eras.29 These approaches correspond quite closely with particular concerns
in cultural and political life. These can be characterised as the confident imperialist
perspective/funny foreigners phase, the integration or blending-in phase and the era
of ethnic self-examination and self-confidence.

2.1. The imperialist era

2.1.1. The colonial period

As indicated the existence of a significant Empire covering large parts of Africa
and the Indian sub-continent continued after World War II. Imperialism was keenly
espoused by a number of prominent politicians like Enoch Powell well into the 1950s
and it was only with reluctance, often in the face of armed struggle, that the process
of de-colonisation was completed. Movements for self-determination bore fruit
26
Race Relations (Amendment) Act, 2000.
27
McCrudden and Brown (1991).
28
MacPherson Report into Stephen Lawrence murder (1999) Chapter 6, pp. 6.34–6.39.
29
For a different way of assessing the changes in filming of the black experience see Jim Pines in British
Cinema and Black Representation (Murphy, 2001).
240 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257

principally after World War II in the Indian sub-continent in 1947, in Africa and the
Far East throughout the 1950s and 1960s.30 Films were made in the inter-war period
which embraced the notion of Empire as a civilising force and which were still found
in the 1960s.
Typical of this approach to other ethnic groups as uncivilised but mouldable is the
filming of Edgar Wallace’s story of a District Officer restoring peace amongst the
child-like natives Sanders of the River (1935). Thus, we have the film starting with a
tribute to the notion of civilising colonialism and the role of men like Sanders.
Africa...tens of millions of natives under British rule, each tribe with its own
chieftain, governed and protected by a handful of white men whose everyday
work is an unsung saga of courage and efficiency. One of them was Commissioner
Sanders.
The tone of interchange and relationships between Sanders (Lord Sandi) and the
chiefs is typified by Sanders’ pep talk to his assembled chiefs prior to taking a 12-
month sabbatical
In my place the Lord Ferguson shall stay and give the law to all the peoples of the
river. I want you to obey him as if you were his own children.
The condescension and obviously assumed inferiority of the ‘‘natives’’ is the crux
of this story about how the tribes are unable to respond to anything other than a
mighty charismatic white man. He, Sanders is the fount of all order and when other
unscrupulous foreigners seek to subvert this control for their own profit they do so
by putting out a cryptic message which underlines the limited and child-like nature of
the native tribes
Sandi is dead. There is no law any more.
His successor, Ferguson, is urged to treat the natives as you would unruly school
children when they run amok on discovering that the charismatic white ruler is no
more.31 The main star of the film, Paul Robeson is reputed to have been outraged at
the final portrayal of Africans in the final version of the film.32 In fairness, without
going into the rest of the film, the lines, which he himself was provided with, make it
pretty clear that his character was going to be portrayed as a wheedling self-serving
servant of imperialism, albeit with charm.
The same contrast between the western and ‘‘native’’ culture is found in Song of
Freedom (1936). This seemed to offer a rather more significant role for Paul Robeson
by providing him with the chance to do more than sing and smile. The accidental
overhearing of London stevedore John Zinga’s stunning voice by the Opera
impresario, Donozetti, results in Robeson touring the world. By chance he discovers
30
India and Pakistan—August 1947; Ghana, 1957; Malaya, 1957; Cyprus, 1960; Nigeria, 1960; Sierra
Leone, 1962; Tanganyika (Tanzania), 1962; Somaliland, 1962; Uganda, 1962; Nyasaland, 1963; Northern
Rhodesia (Zambia), 1963.
31
The self-serving nature of this portrayal did attract oblique criticism at the time notably in the Will
Hay spoof Ol’ Bones of the River (1938).
32
Bourne (1998), p. 16.
 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257 241

that he is a descendant of Queen Zinga and is the lost King of the West African
island of Casanga. This unusual film, nonetheless, despite having a black actor in the
leading protagonist role still portrays African tribal life as riven with ignorance and
superstition.33 Contentment is to be found by acceptance of Robeson as the true
King of the islanders whence his ancestors came so that he can lead them with his
Western ways from being ‘‘backward, uncivilised and impoverished’’.
A related later feature of the Empire is the relationship between colonisers and
colonised in the dog days of the colonial era. In Bhowani Junction (1956), 34 Victoria
Jones, a woman of Anglo-Indian parentage discovers that she is tolerated but not
fully accepted due to her ‘‘half-caste’’ status. She rejects the suits of her Anglified
fellow ‘‘half-caste’’, Patrick Taylor and of Nationalist activist Ranjit Kasel, and
becomes the mistress of a white Army officer. Told in flashback, we see the way in
which Britain’s military and gubernatorial withdrawal from the Indian sub-continent
is reflected in the problems of identity she experiences due to this racial status. The
conclusion of the film suggests an upbeat ending with love winning out against
prejudice from both communities. The dominant mood in the film is of an isolated
and problematic situation for the young couple in the new India and for Anglo-
Indians generally rather more in keeping with the John Masters’ original text and the
analysis of Ranjit Kasel’s mother

Have you ever met an Englishman that didn’t insult you. Haven’t your own
people worked for them for a hundred years and how are they going to reward
you. They are going to leave you here with us. And what do you think we are
going to do with Anglo-Indians? We’re going to make you realise that you are
Indians. Inferior Indians. Possibly disloyal because you spent the last hundred
years licking England’s boots and kicking us with your own boots.

A number of films during this late colonial era looked at these cross-cultural
relationships including the British The Wind Cannot Read (1958). This rehearses the
notion of forbidden love between Suzuki, a Japanese female translator, and Dirk
Bogarde’s military student during the Second World War. The problem of social
disapproval that the couple seeks to overcome is elided by the death, from a
mysterious illness, of Suzuki.35 Thus, the trope is played out in these films
superficially as one of culture clash with the crucial problem being acceptance by the
dominant white society.

2.1.2. Foreignness on the home front—funny foreigners and laughable minorities

There has continued to be a strong adherence in local situated family comedy
and drama to racial and ethnic stereotypes. From the 1940s through to the
1970s Scottish, Irish, Welsh and English stereotypes abound along with ‘‘funny
33
Bourne (1998), pp. 23–28.
34
See, also, North West Frontier (1956)—wise imperialists counterposed to simple destructive native
hordes.
35
See also The World of Suzie Wong (1960) about Hong Kong prostitute, Nancy Kwan, who attracts the
attention of by two western men, William Holden and Michael Wilding.
242 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257

foreigners’’.36 Typically, in an otherwise undistinguished musical vehicle for a trio of

British popsters37 there is a sequence in the social security benefits office in What a
Crazy World (1963) firmly in the tradition of the American black servant
stereotyping.38 All kinds of foreigners are shown disrupting the normal process of
British youth avoiding work by themselves turning up and seeking State financial
assistance.39 What makes it of particular noteworthy is the way it feeds into a
populist right-wing concept of dole scrounging being connected to foreigners—in the
instance of the film principally non-white.40 A sequence in the world of work—
factory, restaurant or cafe—could have achieved the notion of nascent multi-
culturalism equally well.
Crude stereotyping abounds in this period. It may be fondly meant but canny
Scots,41 devious Welsh42, feckless Irish43 and hidebound English44 are the staple of
dramas and comedies.45 Other ethnic groups are similarly treated whether they are
amusing servile Indians46 or onion-toting Frenchmen.47 It has to be said that an
absence of light and shade in characterisation is not unusual at this time with Trade
Unionists as ogres in both comedy and drama48. There are exceptions like the
reflection on the nature of inherent national, as opposed to individual characteristics,
in the context of the initial ostracism and subsequent acceptance of a wartime
German bride by her RAF hero husband’s family and home town.49

2.2. Host reaction—the question of integration and ‘‘blending in’’

In response to the increase of immigration from outwith Europe or the old

Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa) and the re-
36
For something of a different treatment see Pool of London (1950) where a subplot involves a tentative
relationship between a black sailor and a white theatre cashier. Problems of integration into a white society
and cultural acceptance are hinted at—the story occupies a very brief amount of screen time compared
with the machinations of the smuggler Bonar Colleano.
37
Joe Brown [hit with film’s title song], Marty Wilde [father of Kim] and Susan Maughan [cover of
Lesley Gore’s Bobby’s Girl].
38
Donald Bogle in Black Beginnings: from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to The Birth of a Nation. (Smith, 1997).
39
The Dole Office song features pig-tailed Chinese, singing Italian waiters, long-robed Africans, Arabs
in headdress, Caribbean dancers, an Irish navvy and a drunken kilted Scotsman.
40
In the 1990s the Conservative Social Security Secretary Peter Lilley, entertained his party’s Annual
Conference with his tales of immigrants knowing only a few words of English—’’social security’’ and
‘‘housing benefit’’ were in this alleged vocabulary. This notion finds a place in the Dole Office sequence in
What a Crazy World.
41
Geordie(1955); Sailor Beware (1956); The Fast Lady (1963).
42
A Run for Your Money (1949); Doctor in the House (1954); Lucky Jim (1957).
43
Captain Boycott (1947); The March Hare (1956);
44
The Admirable Crichton (1957); The Man in the White Suit (1951); The League of Gentlemen (1960).
45
Contemporary TV satirised the same crude stereotypes with Johnny Speight’s bigot Alf Garnett [Till
Death Us Do Part (1966-8 passim) and Clement and Le Frenais’ Likely Lads (1964–1966).
46
The Millionairess with Peter Sellers (1960); North West Frontier (1959).
47
Summer Holiday (1962).
48
I’m All Right Jack (1959); The Angry Silence (1960).
49
Frieda (1947) (Director: Basil Dearden).
 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257 243

emergence of neo-Fascist politics we find an initial tendency to simply ignore racial

issues as in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). The casual good-natured but
offensive racial stereotyping of the Seaton family in their encounter with a black
soldier found in Sillitoe’s book50 does not appear in the film version. Sillitoe himself
explained that the book was originally written as short stories and poems featuring
the character of Arthur Seaton.51 The omission of the section involving the visit of
Sam, the black soldier visiting Arthur’s relatives at Christmas does not detract from
the narrative flow of Arthur Seaton’s passage from a carefree young philanderer to a
married man with responsibilities. By the same token, the mother of Doreen,
Arthur’s fiancee, is presented as a simple petit bourgeois mother-in-law stereotype.
Her enigmatic Indian lodger/lover, Chumley, does not feature although, again, this
does not affect the narrative thrust of the story. These absences can be taken to
signify the relative invisibility of ethnic minorities in most parts of the Britain in the
late 1950s, albeit Arthur Seaton’s Nottingham was the scene of some of the 1958 race
riots.
Race and its impact on the existing society are, however, found in a couple of films
made in the wake of the riots. These adopt a liberal equal treatment agenda. In
Flame in the Streets (1961) there is a clear rejection of discrimination in the
workplace over the promotion of a black foreman. This occurs after the espousal of
a clear anti-racist stance by John Mills’ trusted Trade Unionist, Jacko Palmer. This
is a man who despite his years of service refuses to take promotion within the Union
and leave the factory floor. His call to his comrades is impassioned and wins the day.
Jacko’s own reaction to discovering his daughter wants to marry a black teacher
from Africa is to warn against the relationship ‘‘for the sake of the children’’. This
was almost exactly the response the author, Erroll Braithwaite, records receiving
from his girlfriend’s father in To Sir With Love.52
Palmer then has to confront the ugly and, to him, unexpected racism of his wife
when she discovers that their daughter is planning marriage with a black teacher.

I’m ashamed of you. When I think of you and that man sharing the same
bedyIt’s filthy, disgusting, it makes my stomach turn over and I want to be sick.

This shows the workplace racists as being, at least on the face of it, economically
driven by fear for their jobs. This is in contrast to the wife whose loathing of the
black teacher is irrational. The film was not well received by some critics who saw it
is a simplistic ‘‘issues’’ film and it did not do well at the box office.53
Race also appears within the generalised social prejudice against the unmarried
teenager in A Taste of Honey (1961). The film, based on the 1959 stage production,
addresses serious and controversial issues that were seldom openly discussed at the
time of its production—single parenthood; inter-racial relationships and the
50
Chapter 14—as is pointed out in the publication of the film script Sillitoe’s book has been significantly
pruned and the storyline simplified with characters and events being either telescoped or omitted.
51
Introduction to 1979 edition, p. 1.
52
Chapter 21.
53
Murphy (1992a).
244 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257

treatment of gays. Here, the father of the child of the pregnant Jo-Rita
Tushingham—is black. The reaction of those around her ranges from condemnation
to support. The boyfriend of Jo is Jimmy, a ‘‘coloured naval rating’’ from Cardiff.
He has proposed marriage and when Jo is left by her feckless mother they have sex.
He duly disappears not knowing of Jo’s pregnancy. On discovering that Jo is
pregnant her mother’s concern is crude suggesting either that the child be adopted by
the black midwife or ‘‘Put it on stage and call it a Blackbird’’. This resignation
indicates rather less faith in ‘‘integration’’ than the liberal Ted Willis had implied in
Flame in the Streets where the young couple were left facing the difficult future
together.
It is in the context, then, of these cultural and political developments that the
adaptation of To Sir with Love (1967) needs to be seen rather than as some feeble
British version of The Blackboard Jungle (1955) which had led to riots when
screened.54 To Sir with Love has a very mild underlying theme that the outlook for
humanity is broadly positive. Erroll Braithwaite’s British Guyanan teacher wins over
his unruly class of mildly rebellious young students with his personality.55 Strangely
enough for a London-set mid-1960s film, apart from Sidney Poitier,56 there are only
three other non-white faces. This reflects the situation when Braithwaite wrote about
in the early 1950s but not 15 years later. One critic of the film was scathing

The sententious script sounds as if it has been written by a zealous Sunday school
teacher after a particularly exhilarating boycott of South African oranges.57

As indicated below, race does not feature through most of the film until the
question of flowers for the dead mother of Seales, the mixed race boy in the class,
emerges. No one is initially prepared to deliver these because they would not want to
be seen visiting such a house. In an unlikely seeming denouement all the children
caste off their bigoted views and turn up at the house for the funeral. This scene is
not, as the above film critic implies, a nod towards a strained liberal agenda, but a
faithful re-enactment of Braithwaite’s original text.58
The issue of bigotry between old and new Britons was covered in an explicit way in
a feature film of the early 1970s derived from a half-hour situation comedy series
running between 1972 and 1976—Love Thy Neighbour (1973). The situation derives
from the premise that the two bigoted factory workers, Eddie and Bill are
neighbours. Eddie is a white Trade Unionist and Bill is a black boss-orientated
54
Apparently, as a result of the inclusion in the soundtrack of Bill Haley and the Comets’ Rock Around
the Clock.
55
Slightly more obliquely racism emerges in a film where the issue is avoiding assumed racism by
‘‘passing white’’—Sapphire (1959).
56
A follow-up To Sir With Love 2 takes Poitier out of retirement after a further 30 years in education in
London—to south side Chicago in 1997—released straight through to budget video. Lulu retains a cameo
role singing the title song.
57
Quoted in Halliwell 1999, p. 816.
58
Chapter 20—the author had made a similar assessment until checking back with the original text. In
his entry in the Cambridge Guide to English Literature Braithwaite’s third volume of autobiography is,
however, described as ‘‘self-congratulatory’’.
 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257 245

Conservative. They insult each other with gusto. Beneath the insults there is both a
permanent standoff as well as a possible resolution awaiting. There is the symbiosis
of mutual entrapment in their jobs and houses. In addition, there is the promise of
ultimate respect for each other since the obviously sensible wives get on just fine. The
actors, Jack Smethurst and Rudolph Walker, reviewed this work 25 years later after
the rise of racist politics and racial attacks and murders in the interim. They
suggested that this series and film did nothing to support racist abuse since each use
by Eddie of the word ‘‘coon’’, ‘‘nignog’’ or ‘‘sambo’’ was balanced with Bill getting
to say ‘‘honky’’ and ‘‘spook’’59 Despite the 1958 riots and Enoch Powell’s prophecy
of ‘‘rivers of blood’’ in 1968 the actors suggested that racism and racial issues had
not really surfaced when the series started in 1972.60

3. Black and Asian British experience as the focal point

In the era when the number of non-white citizens had grown beyond 5% of the
overall British population the focus shifts from the reactions of indigenous Britons to
non-white faces. A very different lens looks at life from the point of view of Black
and Asian Britons in a small number of films over the past two decades at a time
when the theme of the host community reaction has been virtually silent.61
The ever present theme in the films reflecting the Asian experience centres on the
problems of living in two distinct cultures. This experience is initially found in My
Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987) which were
written by Hanif Kureishi and directed by Stephen Frears. They both document the
impact of moving to Britain on Pakistani family life. The question of identity and the
relationship between immigrants, Britain and Pakistan is the theme shared by both
films. The main character Omar has a father who has had to leave Pakistan because
of his radical politics. His family are entrepreneurs. Omar meets various members of
his family at the house of his uncle Nasser and aunt Bilquis. He is introduced to,
Cherry, the Anglo-Pakistani wife of his drug-dealing cousin Salim

CHERRY...I know all your gorgeous family in Karachi

OMAR (This is a faux pas) You’ve been there?

CHERRY You stupid, what a stupid, it’s my home. Could anyone call this silly
little island off Europe their home? ...

BILQUIS Cherry, my little nephew knows nothing of that life there.

59
History of British Comedy—BBC 2—March 1999.
60
There is some oblique support for this kind of insensitivity in the continuation throughout the 1970s
of the Black and White Minstrel Show. This had started, ironically perhaps in 1958 and its blackface white
caste did not leave our screens until 1978.
61
For fascinating coverage of early black directed films like Pressure, Black Joy, Burning an Illusion and
Babylon see Lola Young’s (1996) and Jim Pines in British Cinema and Black Representation (Murphy,
2001, p. 177).
246 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257

CHERRY Oh God I’m so sick of hearing about these in betweens. People should
make up their minds where they are.
The film in a variety of different situations points up the complexity of being Asian
in Thatcher’s England, uncomfortable in both the minority Pakistani immigrant
ethnic culture and within the predominantly white host ‘‘British’’ culture. By the end
of the film despite the attack by Johnny’s ex-mates on the launderette it seems that
Omar’s love for Johnny has made his decision for him and he is committed to this
relationship with the problems it entails for both of them.
In Laundrette also his uncle Nasser has problems in deciding where his loyalties as
a member of an ethnic minority lie. Nasser is also prepared to employ Johnny, the
white former fascist, engaged to help out in the ‘‘laundrette’’ of the title by Omar
with whom he went to school. The work for Omar’s uncle Nasser involves doing odd
jobs. These include ‘‘unscrewing’’—illegal eviction of tenants or squatters. Johnny
draws attention to the paradox of evicting a black tenant on behalf of Nasser, a
successful Pakistani businessman
JOHNNY Aren’t you giving ammunition to your enemies doing this kind of...
unscrewing. To people who say Pakis just come here to hustle other people’s lives
and jobs and houses...
NASSER But I’m a professional businessman not a professional Pakistani.
There’s no race question in the new enterprise culture.

Receiving equal treatment means being treated as badly as anyone else in the
interests of profit. There is also fracturing between the non-white communities
referred to later in Bhaji on the Beach. At the end of Laundrette the oblique ending
favoured by Kureishi in his screenplay leaves unclear the future of the other major
‘‘in between’’, Omar’s uncle Nasser. Is he able any longer to continue living within
two distinct and grating cultures separated as he is from both his family and his
white mistress but reconciled with his brother? Omar’s prospective marriage partner,
his cousin Tania, has made her decision for full rejection of the traditional female
Pakistani role. It is fair to say, however, that this seems to centre more on
claustrophobic restrictions of family as opposed to embracing the host culture.
The tone is darker and more overtly about class and gender politics as well as race
in Sammy and Rosie. The return of Sammy’s father to his beloved London to find a
riot torn streets and the change in the culture is the initial context for the exploration
of identity of immigrants. The wider problem of belonging to a place that no longer
exists is a persistent notion throughout the film.
RAFI For me England is hot buttered toast on a fork in front of an open fire...

This is said in the context of criss-crossed motorways, flyovers, huge direction

indicators, and swirl of fast-moving traffic, dreamlike, noisy strange. This is not the
England that Rafi remembers and a place of such endemic conflict that he ends up
taking his own life. Sammy and Rosie portrays an England which is not sympathetic
to individuals or groups with values outwith the mainstream
 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257 247

A more affirmative, but critical view of minority ethnic experience is found in

Bhaji on the Beach (1993). This traces the problem of the second generation adjusting
to a different culture and creating a new self-confident distinctive culture. For once
the white world is marginal to the issues explored which are much more to do with
generational and gender conflict. The coach trip from the midlands to Blackpool has
as its underlying theme a series of subtle challenges by the Indian daughters and
nieces to the disapproving older women of their families. Coupled with this is a
portrait of the narrower authority structure within the male headed family unit. The
attempt of Amrit to persuade his wife to return to her servile abused position for the
sake of their son—but really to save face for him in the community is unsuccessful
when he reverts to his true violent nature. The threats, though to these traditional
forms of determining how life is to be lived have their source not in the specific
prescriptions of white society but in the alternative glimpse of another way afforded
by that society. The source of potential ethnic conflict is located not in a story about
white racism but rather the novel question for British cinema of a black/Asian
romance. Here, it echoes in a rather more optimistic light the theme of the American
Mississippi Masala (1992).
Conflict within cultures is a question which is explored in two films in rather
different registers looking at how young people react to being part of two distinct
worlds. The theme of belief in a secular society emerges in Hannif Kureishi’s sombre
My Son the Fanatic (1997). This shows youth seeking certainty in a society without
fixed moral certainties. The rejection of pleasure is central to this exploration of the
appeal of fundamentalism in which taxi-driving middle-aged Parvez is at a loss to
understand why young people wish to surrender the right to think for themselves.
The authoritarian nature of Muslim thought is what the adapting ‘‘fitting in’’
immigrant father in the end cannot bring himself to accept. The fact that this breaks
up his family and leaves him at the end of the film adrift from his wife, son and
mistress means as he admits ‘‘I have managed to destroy everything. I have never felt
worseyor better’’.
The same kind of issues are covered in East is East (1999) with the various children
from a mixed Anglo/Pakistani marriage seeking to put into practice their own takes
on how to live in a predominantly white culture. Set in the early 1970s one son is an
entrepreneurial adapter cut-off by his father and his younger brothers and sister have
to decide how to live their lives. Will this be within what they see as their repressive
communities or in the hostile but seemingly freer white world? This tension is
reflected in three of the brothers’ dual identities as Tariq/Tony, Nazir/Nigel and
Abdul/Arthur. Although this is a comedy the pull of two very different cultures and
the potential for personal conflict is the central trope in all aspects of the film. Setting
the film in the early 1970s allows the theme to present as a view back to when issues
seemed starker. The virulent repatriation racism of Powellism and the restrictive
moral certainties and rules of the Muslim world are interspersed with broad comic
moments which have been described as unexpectedly crude.62 The different members
of the family make different choices.

62
Brian McFarlane in The More things ChangeyBritish Cinema in the 90s (Murphy, 2001, p. 277).
248 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257

The essential ease of making choices between cultural demands is a feature of the
most recent exploration of the British Asian experience, directed and co-written by
the director of Bhaji on the Beach, Gurinder Chadha. In Bend it Like Beckham
(2002), a light, almost sitcom touch is brought to the tale of a young girl, Jess
Bhamra, who has a talent for playing football. Football does not fit in with the
submissive marriage orientated path prescribed by Sikh culture and being taken by
Jess’ older sister. The dominant aspect of both Sikh and lower middle class English
cultures which the film reveals is the need to keep up appearances and pay attention
to what the community will think. There is also a complicating love interest for Jess
in the shape of her football manager, Joe, across the racial divide. This, however,
comes from a man from a minority group himself, as Joe is Irish. Jess’ family came to
Britain from East Africa and her father was a keen cricketer and it turns out the
discrimination he suffered on arrival in relation to playing cricket has caused his
opposition to sport. This then segues into a Hollywoodesque touch with a magical
melting away of all other opposition to the proposed California football scholarships
of both Jess and her white teammate Jules. The tidy happy resolution might seem to
smack of target audience expectations but Hanif Kureishi’s Parvez would have fully
approved.
From the black perspective there has been no real equivalent to the blaxploitation
films of the 1970s or the canon of work of Spike Lee which have achieved wide
distribution or video status.63 The number of British films produced as a whole
reached an all-time low at the start of the 1980s rising in the 1990s to just over 80. 64
Much of the limited work has suffered from the increasing concentration of
advertising and promotion on a handful of films.65 Young Soul Rebels (1991) and
Babymother (1996) were, however, produced with the financial support of Channel
Four Films and are available in video format. Like British Asian films, they are
concerned with the experiences of individuals from ethnic backgrounds and their
inter-relationships. These films are as close as we get to a black British cinema in the
terms indicated by Cripps66. The status and issue of citizens of mixed race is briefly
raised in Young Soul Rebels where one of the two main soul D.J. protagonists has a
white mother. Racism and homophobia within the black community are touched on
as in the discussion of the identity of the murderer of a young man found in a park
shortly before the 1977 Silver Jubilee celebrations.
Carlton
Can’t trust dem ‘alf caste bwoy ye no. Ye don’t know which side them on. I could
well believe it was one a dem kill that black bwoyy.as far as I and I concern,
musa be a white bwoy, an’ if it wasn’t a white bwoy, I’ll lay on money it was a ‘alf
castey.
63
Distribution—the burden of the filmmaker and Why are black films so poorly distributed both sides of the
Atlantic Black Film Maker (April/May, 2002), 14—although this refers more to theatre showings than
video availability.
64
BFI Film and Television Handbook, 2001, p. 23.
65
The British Film Industry in the 1990s Peter Todd (in BritishCinema of the 90s), p. 17.
66
Cripps (1978).
 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257 249

Caz is suspect because he associates with Chris—son of a black father and white
mother—as well as white people. Which is more problematic between race and
homosexuality is left uncertain
Caz
You’re fulla shit Davis! The bruvva dat got killed on the park—he was what you
call an anti-man, a bwatty bwoy. Dat make it alright no? You concerned ‘bout
who did it now?
Davis hesitates, he has no quick answer
Caz throws down his cloth, leaves the garage, not waiting for one
The marginalisation of black interests in white dominated culture is, however, a
much more extensive focus in the film. The white world is peripheral in the daily lives
of the protagonists except as the force that moulds black experience.
Similarly in Babymother (1995) the struggle of Anita to escape from the influence
of her partner, Byron and to make it as an artiste in her own right in the world of
reggae is not mediated by race or the white world. The conflict is between traditional
male chauvinism and her perception of a woman’s role and potential. She finds
strength from the successful struggle of her supposed sister Rose who managed to
obtain professional employment through support from her own mother and self-
belief after giving birth to Anita.
This is a cinema of self-confidence which does not rely on the validation of the
dominant white culture. Themes centring around how the cultures intersect are dealt
with principally from the minority viewpoint. The issues of interest in Asian and
black British cinema are how those communities relate to each other. This is not to
say that racism and the impact of white Britain is not important. This is something
which may either be merely sketched in as in the car park taunting in Bhaji on the
Beach or which is so much a part of life that it hardly needs emphasising. Explaining
his decision to cut the pub fight scene in East is East, director Damien O’Donnell
explained
The whole idea of them being surrounded by racism is made abundantly clear
earlier on in the film and done with humour so why should we have it again in a
serious sense67

3.1. Adaptation and the simplification of social issues

In order to locate film more firmly within their socio-political context it is

proposed to examine the changes which emerge when adaptations are undertaken
from literature to film. Historical surveys of developments in British social issues
cinema have tended not to concern themselves with literary sources as a discrete
topic of analysis68. They have tended to focus more on the relationship between the
67
East is East DVD Deleted Scenes—director’s comments.
68
Hill (1986, 1999), and Murphy (1992b).
250 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257

cultural zeitgeist and the kinds of films, which have been able to secure funding. In a
work on the new realism in the British cinema from the mid-1950s to early 1960s
John Hill explores the social and economic context of the production of such films.69
The concern is more particularly with the relationship between film and ideology.
Lola Young in her examination of both race, gender and sexuality in British film is
concerned with the development of ideologies about race, gender and sexual
orientation to see how these have been mediated in films dealing with these aspects of
‘‘otherness’’.70 In much the same way John Hill’s work on the 1980s traces the
relationship between the cultural cinematic artefacts produced in this decade and the
core features of Thatcherism.71 Notions like class, gender, sexual orientation and
ethnicity and the various struggles around their interpretation provide the context
against which films of the 1980s are assessed. They are seen as major factors both
informing the making of film as well as being vehicles for the elaboration of distinct
versions of the nation and politics. The focus in these works however is solely on the
films and there is very limited coverage of the relationship between the screenplays
and any source they may have had in plays or novels.
The principal focus of adaptation studies, for their part, has been on how
‘‘literature’’ or major works of fiction have fared when they reached the screen, with
particular emphasis on the question of ‘‘fidelity’’.72 This has not been without its
critics, of course.73 Given the major cinematic and televisual coverage of some
writers it is not surprising that the treatment of the work of writers like Shakespeare,
Dickens and Thackeray has dominated.74 Different ways of categorising adaptation
have emerged from the writers in this area drawing on the works examined. Thus,
Wagner produces a triple category of adaptation covering transposition, commen-
tary and analogy denoting the distinct ways in which the cinema industry has dealt
with literary sources.75 They have sometimes simply rendered their content in a
visual form. Wuthering Heights (1939), Jane Eyre (1944), Madame Bovary (1949),
Lord Jim (1965) are amongst those which fall into this category of Wagner’s. On
other occasions filmmakers have altered the original, either deliberately or
intentionally. Here, the fictional work is a point of departure for the new creation.
This may involve re-emphasis or re-structuring. Catch-22 (1970) and A Clockwork
Orange (1972) are examples of this relationship between fiction and film. Finally
Cabaret (1972) and Death in Venice (1971) are put forward as representing the
method which involves using different techniques to make a very different work of
art from the original. This may involve shifts in time, location or characters. Wagner
even provides a way of seeing the early James Bond films as fitting into each of these
categories. Sinyard, for his part talks of adaptation as criticism. He suggests that the

69
Hill (1986).
70
Fear of the dark (1996).
71
Hill (1999).
72
Sinyard (1986), Orr and Nicholson (1992); Writing and Cinema, Bignell (1999, Part 3); Adaptations:
from text to screen, screen to text Cartmell and Whelehan (1999, Part II).
73
McFarlane (1996, pp. 8–11).
74
Giddings et al. (1990), Davies and Wells (1994).
75
Wagner (1975, Part 3).
 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257 251

best adaptations of books for film involve the adaptation being seen not as a
pictorialisation of the complete novel but rather a critical essay, which stresses what,
is perceived as the main theme.76 The best adaptations, suggests Sinyard, provide ‘‘a
critical gloss on the novels and a freshly imagined cinematic experience that enrich
the appreciation of anyone sincerely devoted to film literature’’.77 In his fascinating
essay78 on To Kill a Mockingbird, for instance, Colin Nicholson does not explore the
wider background of lynching or official courtroom murder prevalent in the
Southern United States which put Finch’s actions into context.79
More recently Brian McFarlane has stressed that this concentration undervalues
the ‘‘intertextuality’’ of film.80 He notes that the non-literary, non-novelistic
influences at work on any film are often crucial. Such matters as conditions within
the film industry and the prevailing cultural and social climate at the time of the
film’s making are major determinants in shaping any film. McFarlane notes that
such notions are difficult to formalise as opposed to questions of narrative
‘‘faithfulness’’. This paper seeks to engage in such a process in the context of To Sir
With Love.
It is the author’s contention that the transformation in the adaptation process can
best be understood by looking at the specific pressures and influences operating on
filmmakers. This context provides a richer picture of the constraints on filmmakers
rather than seeing this principally as an abstract artistic process. Further the
relationship between social and economic developments needs to be examined to see
what kinds of parameters informed writers and filmmakers in their work.

3.2. Adapting Erroll Braithwaite

To Sir With Love documents the experience of one black teacher in post-war
Britain. It is based on the autobiography of the same title of Erroll Braithwaite
published in 1959. Braithwaite traces his first 6 months as a general class teacher of
15 years olds at a tough secondary school in East London in the early 1950s. He
describes his experiences as a well-qualified and educated black engineer seeking
work in post-War London after working extensively in South America and the
United States. The question of colour makes several appearances in the book.
Braithwaite devotes a significant section of the early part of the book to explaining
the reaction of potential employers to discovering that this well-qualified applicant
was black.81 Jobs that were open have suddenly been filled. Braithwaite even checks
the veracity of this with a white friend who is informed that indeed the job is still
vacant when he applies. We see how it is that Braithwaite has ended up teaching.
Some messages are mixed. On his way to his new school he comes across the
76
Sinyard (1986, Chapter 8).
77
Sinyard (1986, p. 117).
78
Colin Nicholson in Hollywood and race:To Kill a Mockingbird, (Orr and Nicholson, 1992).
79
See, for instance, special 400pp. issue of the Alabama Law Review, 1994 devoted exclusively to locating
Atticus Finch in his political and historical context.
80
McFarlane (1996, p. 21).
81
Chapters 4 and 5 (almost 10% of the book’s total length).
252 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257

resistance of one passenger on a bus to sitting next to him mixed in with the
disapproval of this behaviour by the bus conductor.82 Similarly, at school his colour
scarcely figures. His struggle is with the children as a teacher/authority figure rather
than as a black man. At this time racial awareness is limited. It seems to be limited to
parents and one of his fellow teachers.83 For instance, the possibility of his renting a
room founders on the racial prejudice of the mother of one of his pupils. His attempt
to rent is met with a withdrawal of the room ‘‘I’m not letting’’ and an explanation
that there’s ‘‘some darky here asking about the room’’. It turns out she is the mother
of one of his pupils. She changes her mind when her daughter puts her under
pressure to rent to ‘‘Sir’’. By this time Braithwaite has thought better of the
advantages of living nearer his place of work.84
Braithwaite also has to endure mild racial ‘‘humour’’ when he cuts his hand and
one of the boys, Potter, expresses surprise at his blood being red. Potter is upbraided
by one of the girls, Pamela Dare who has a crush on Braithwaite. The latter brushes
over the incident agreeing with Potter that it shows that ‘‘colour is only skin deep’’.
There is, however, a confrontation between Dare and the boys about their
insensitivity in asking all sorts of questions about ‘Sir’s’ ‘otherness’
Do you ever wash Sir? Do you feel the cold, Sir? Do you ever have a haircut,
Sir?85
She challenges them to reconsider whether the teacher might not be hurt by their
remarks and that perhaps it is not ‘‘just a joke’’. Finally she turns on Seales, the child
of a black father and white mother, and points out that at least he should know
better. He replies that he did not say anything and she turns on him
You never say anything. You’re coloured too, but you just sit back and keep your
mouth shut.
Braithwaite, nonetheless, appears to be making progress in widening the cultural
horizons and also racial awareness of his poor East End pupils taking them on a trip
to the museums in the West End of London. One of the girls is bold enough to
verbally challenge the disapproval of other travellers at the sight of a black teacher
with white school students in the subway.
In addition, one of the central dramatic conflicts of the book does centre on race.
It is not, though, concerned with Braithwaite’s colour. Instead it involves the funeral
of Seales’ mother. The class voluntarily takes up a collection for a bouquet of
flowers. Delivering these flowers is not something, however, which the class are, at
first, willing to do. More importantly, nor is there any question of them attending the
funeral, as this would involve going to the home of a black person. Braithwaite is
82
Chapter 1.
83
The other male teacher, the unpleasant Weston takes opportunities to make a series of pointed
remarks referring to Braithwaite as ‘‘our sunburned friend’’, being a ‘‘black sheep to the slaughter’’ and his
working ‘‘black magic’’. Weston is, however an unpopular loner in the staffroom where all other teachers
are supportive.
84
Chapter 13.
85
Chapter 14.
 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257 253

amazed that the tolerance and colour blindness which the class have shown towards
him are really so superficial. He loses faith in the project which he has been engaged
in treating them as adults. When he turns up on the day of the funeral at the street
where the Seales family live he is moved to tears when he discovers that the whole
class have in fact taken heed of his obvious disappointment and are there outside the
house.
Racial intolerance also appears in a part of the book devoted to the development
of the romance between Braithwaite and fellow teacher Gillian Blanchard. They
receive rude treatment when they go out in public together and there is an absence of
parental support for their relationship. Her father urges them in the interests of any
children they might produce to reconsider their relationship. His concern, he
explains, is based not on prejudice but on realism.
Hence, the initial impetus of Braithwaite into teaching, his location when teaching,
his relationship with his pupils as perceived by the outside world and his civics
teaching are all crucially mediated by his otherness. His blackness in a racist white
world provides much of the narrative drive coupled with his negotiation of a pupil
crush by the pupil, Pamela Dare.
The 1967 film version written, produced and directed by James Clavell retains only
limited fragments of this juxtaposition. The action is updated to the contemporary
setting of the mid-1960s. There are more ethnic minorities in Braithwaite’s class—in
addition to Seales there is an Asian girl and a Chinese girl—both of whom have non-
speaking roles. On the other hand, a number of features of the book disappear—the
racists in the bus and later on the subway are not included; the racist employers who
caused Braithwaite to give up seeking world in his chosen profession receive no
mention; the romance with the white teacher, their experience of going out in public
together and the reaction of her realist/racist father is absent from the screenplay.
What is left are two incidents—the funeral flowers dispute with its positive
conclusion about racial harmony remains along with the cut hand incident. What we
have in the film is a story about young people maturing and coming of age with the
help of a sympathetic adult. The role of Sidney Poitier could almost have been as
easily played by any actor. Teachers are the strange ‘‘other’’ rather than anything
more complex involving ethnicity. This notion was in fact adopted in the TV series
made in the wake of To Sir With Love. The same characters appear in Please Sir. The
teacher becomes an ineffectual but nice Northern white man in his first teaching
post.86
Some of the changes in emphasis stem from the absence of the main protagonists
inner thoughts ever being expressed. The driving force is the narrative rather than
the combination of reflection and narrative found in the book.87 The overall removal
of much of the meat of the Braithwaite book, however, does not stem from the need

86
LWT 1970–1978; the characters continued into post-school world in The Fenn Street Gang. The
school based TV series itself spawned a 1971 film of the same name. There were four ethnic minority pupils
but they occupied minor roles with minimal speaking parts.
87
Stuart Laing in The fiction is already there: Writing and Film in Blair’s Britain (Bignell, 1999)—on
Nick Hornby’s adaptation of his episodic thoughts into a narrative structure in Fever Pitch.
254 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257

to insert a narrative structure. This is there already. It can, rather, best be seen not
simply as Clavell taking artistic licence with Braithwaite’s text but as part of British
cinema’s representation of race and ethnicity as an issue. This in turn has altered
over the years as race has signified a different role in British society as Britain has
been transformed into a multicultural society. The emphasis in the 1960s was either
to airbrush racial minorities out of the scene or to concentrate on the reaction of the
white majority community. With the emergence of a significant British-born
population the focus has shifted to the problems of those who, like Meenan Khan in
East is East have a different racial identity from that ascribed to them by either their
families or new neighbours. She indicates she is not prepared to accept the direction
of her father towards an arranged marriage and declares she is not ‘‘marrying a
fuckin’ Paki’’

I’m not Pakistani. I was born here. I speak English not Urdu.

3.3. Conclusion

The Filmography in Representing Blackness88 is revealing. In none of the essays in

that collection do any of the films referred to in this essay feature.89 From Sanders of
the River through Flame in the Streets and To Sir With Love down to My Beautiful
Laundrette and Young Soul Rebels nothing appears. Work in the British cinema has
been on British issues. It has been determined by Britain’s own quite specific
historical and political history. Many of the themes in writing on black American
cinema do not easily resonate in Britain. The stereotypical ‘‘Uncle Tom’’ portrayal
of British citizens has not been a feature of British film.90 By contrast, we have Paul
Robeson treated on his merits in The Proud Valley (1939) and being accepted
unquestioningly into a Welsh coalmining community. They are keen to win a singing
competition and they have noted that Robeson scored highly in the singing stakes,
and taking the pragmatic view that down the mine colour does not signify. Rather
there has been the rather different agendas of colonialism or post-colonialism. The
post-bellum, post-servitude adjustments of the South from decades of Jim Crow laws
have no simple equivalent within the British experience.
In addition, British cinema has faced its own problems in terms of competition
from the dominant English language film producing country, the United States. This
has been a long-standing issue since the beginnings of film91 with various
protectionist devices like local quotas used over the years.92 The numbers of British
films seen and distributed has always been limited in comparison to the United States
where some 400 films are produced annually. In the 1990s the number of films
88
Smith (1997).
89
The index of Reel to Real tells a similar tale with only two passing references to British film.
90
Richards (XXXX, Chapter 3, p. 60). The black man as hero.
91
Victoria de Grazia, Mass Culture and Sovereignty: The American Challenge to European Cinema 1920–
1960. Journal of Modern History 61(1), 1989, 53.
92
Toby Miller in The Film Industry and the Government: ‘Endless Mr Beans and Mr Bonds’? (Murphy,
2000, p. 37).
 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257 255

produced in Britain with financial involvement averaged just over 80.93 Not
surprisingly, the major proportion of films exhibited were American—68% with a
further 16% joint US/UK productions.94 Although the number of cinema
attendances rose steadily during the 1980s and 1990s to 139 million from the 1984
low point of 54 million95 the range of films on offer continue to be dominated by
Hollywood films. The rise of multiplexes and megaplexes from 1 with 10 screens in
1985 to 142 with 1222 screens in 1997 has not led to a wider range of choice at the
cinema. Instead there have been multiple screenings of blockbusters and a
programming policy involving what Stuart Hanson describes as ‘‘a narrow range
of product from the major distributors’’—who are all American.96 This combination
of a limited British film industry and limited space within cinemas has not helped in
the development of films concerned with specific local issues around ethnic identity.
This combination of cultural and material factors has led to a British cinema with
broad themes that correspond to particular moments in British socio-political
history—the Colonial Experience; the host reaction to Commonwealth immigration
and finally the Immigrant and second generation experience. The themes have not
been entirely self-contained. Hence we do find films about the colonial experience in
the 1960s97 as well as films about host community reactions98 along with ethnic
experiential cinema. What is interesting about the most recently acclaimed film from
director Mike Leigh is the treatment of race in this film about a racially mixed
family.99 Brenda Blethyn discovers in Secrets and Lies (1995) that the daughter that
she gave up for adoption, without even seeing, over 25 years ago is black. The
question of race is at no point in this film an issue but how the characters react to the
tissue of secrets and lies which have both sustained the family’s relationships over the
years and prevented them from expressing their true feelings. These are, however,
human and cultural rather than racial and ethnic problems.100
This paper has sought to show that in the area selected the history and context is
quite specific. An imperial and colonial role had a major influence. The informal
censorship system which moulded the portrayal of the social issue of poverty was
absent.101 By locating these films in their cultural and political context it is possible
to understand their varying images of ethnicity as well as the process of adaptation
rather better. In relation to adaptation, this is particularly so when the original
source has a limited status of its own. This approach, at least in its initial phase,
suggests that adapted films are also susceptible to such a perspective in place of a
93
Peter Todd in The British Film Industry in the 1990s (Murphy, 2000, p. 17).
94
Dyja (1999, p. 35).
95
Dyja (1999, p 30).
96
Stuart Hanson in Spoilt for Choice? Multiplexes in the 90s (Murphy, 2000, p. 48).
97
Death Drums Along the River (1964)—a supposed remake of Sanders updated and altered into a
simple Africa-set thriller—no black actors have any speaking roles.
98
Scum (1979).
99
Contrast with Made in America (1993) with Whoopi Goldberg and Ted Danson where the clash
between African American and redneck culture is, at least at the beginning, the central theme.
100
Although Secrets and Lies has been criticised for its portrayal of the daughter Hortense.
101
Murphy (1992b); Peter Robson in Poverty in Film, Law and Society Association Meeting, 1998
(mimeo).
256 P. Robson / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 30 (2002) 235–257

concentration on the aesthetic and stylistic distinctions between the written source
and film.102 Thus the interesting changes we find in the film versions of books on
ethnic issues, like To Sir with Love and Bhowani Junction can more viably be
assessed. This process of adaptation involved requires to be looked outwith an
artistic vacuum.
When we do this we can appreciate the 1967 film adaptation of To Sir With Love
more fully. It is an updated and toned down tale of mild inter-generational conflict in
a formal hierarchical setting. The situation of black professionals in 1960s Britain,
their specific problems and their rationale for being in the position they are in, is not
addressed. Seeking to do a 21st century remake would offer a different challenge.
Changes would include an update. The major protagonist would now be an asylum
seeker and the film would concentrate on his or probably her family’s travails within
their new multicultural, multi-ethnic community. The limited finance available in the
British film industry suggests a co-production involving the import of a big star as in
the original.103 The kind of themes which have achieved commercial success in
British black and Asian film suggest that a historical retelling of the post-War ex-
Serviceman immigrant would be an unlikely option. Given the penchant for these in
the United States104 this underlines the crucial need for work on adaptation and
evaluation of film themes to be truly intertextual and located firmly within the actual
rather than simply the aesthetic.

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